


We Do What We Have To

by steviemarie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Mentions of Suicide, mentions of depression, some spoilers for the anime onlys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:29:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviemarie/pseuds/steviemarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You abandoned your village at the worst moment and you have to live with that. </p>
<p>But you're not the only one who has done regretful things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Do What We Have To

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old work, reposted from deviantart and so it has ____ spaces for the name of the reader. 
> 
> This was written as a request and stands as the only time I (badly) attempted to write in canon. Sort of.

_  
The sun beat down on your back from overhead, making you feel more uncomfortable than you already were, carrying a heavy load of wood on your back. You were dirty and exhausted, your back ached and your legs hurt and all you wanted to do was get back into the village so that you could abandon this wood and find a quiet corner somewhere in your home to attempt to take a nap before your Mother discovered you and demanded that you help her cook. You figured if you were lucky – and if you hadn't collapsed by then – you could get at least a solid hour._

_Today hadn't been the greatest of days, you knew today was going to be a wood gathering day as your family was running low on supplies and you'd promised your Mother that you and your brother would come and gather today. Only when you'd all awoken this morning it was to discover that your brother was running a fever and wouldn't be able to come with you. You hadn't wanted to come alone, because you you'd be expected to bring home the same amount of wood you would if it was just the two of you, but you knew if you didn't then it wouldn't get done and you didn't want to be held accountable for your family freezing to death – the day may be warm from the sun now, but nights in your village could get incredibly cold._

_And so you'd set out alone, expecting to just go to your usual spot and gather wood and take it back to the village – possibly even making two trips if you couldn't carry all you needed back at once. Only when you'd got there, it was to discover that it was almost cleared and there were only a few stay pieces of wood left, someone else had collected prior to you arriving and had left it almost completely desolate. You knew that you couldn't go back empty handed and so you'd gone looking for somewhere else to gather, which after walking for quite some time, you'd found closer to the village that was closest to the one that yourself and your family resided in, there were a few stray people gathering there._

_You'd been working in peace when you'd started to overhear pieces of the conversations they were having, you'd had some words addressed to you when you'd arrived, but you'd dismissed them and so you were no longer being included. That didn't bother you, you had better things to do than pause to talk to them after all, you were always apprehensive about people you didn't know anyway, because you could never understand why these adults around you now and the ones you encountered on a daily basis could be happy with this existence._

_You longed to go outside the walls and see what the wider world looked like and though you feared the Titans – of course you feared the Titans, who didn't? – you wondered how much information about them and the world at large your village had about them was really true. Every so often, news would trickle into your village that the walls were in danger of being attacked again, or that they'd been broken and all of that had turned out to be rumors, which you suspected had been passed in to make sure that_

_It seemed like it was this villages turn for those rumors today, because that's what they were talking about, in panicked tones, that they'd heard that something had happened in the Shiganshina district and a Titan, bigger than any that had been encountered before had attacked the wall and let the Titans inside, wrecking the village. They spoke about how they'd heard that the Trost district had taken on most of the refuges and that there'd been another Titan attack, by a smaller, but just as (if not) more dangerous. And how they'd heard that they were still around._

_You rolled your eyes at the nonsense, things like that didn't happen, you were safe, you were sure of it._

_Your mind wondered back to the way those people had been clearly panicking and expecting something to happen, you kind of wished you'd told them not to worry and that these rumors came about all the time and that everything would all be fine, but you were sure they'd figure it out when nothing happened to them. You were pulled away from your thoughts by an unfamiliar noise. It was loud... followed by another and rustling leaves. You'd never heard something like that before it sounded somewhat like a..._

_A large footstep?_

_You didn't know exactly what was happening, but you were flooded with fear, with panic and before you could quite contemplate what you were doing, that if it was something serious your village wouldn't know about it, you'd dropped your wood. And you'd turned and ran in the opposite direction._

 

*-*

You leaned against the wall of the stable, tears rolling down your cheeks as you thought back to that day. Back to when you were awful, uneducated about how severe things could be, a coward. About how that the thing you had heard had been Titan's descending on your village and that you hadn't gone back to them, you'd just let that happen to them. That you'd been the only one to survive. 

 

Over the past few years 'lucky' had become your least favourite word. 

 

That's what people told, no – insisted, you were. You were just the lucky girl who'd been away from her village and had been the only survivor. But you didn't feel lucky, far from it, you felt sick to your stomach whenever you thought about it and you didn't think of much else these days now that you were out of training and didn't have it to distract you. And you knew, you knew that you weren't lucky, you were selfish. You didn't deserve to be here, you didn't deserve to have spent the last few years alive – at first with the family who'd taken you in and given you a bed in Trost and at the training academy when you'd finally been able to leave. 

 

You had no desire to fight Titans, infact if you got close enough to one you would probably just stand still, maybe dance a little if you so needed to get it's attention. You were quite disappointed you'd gotten this far in your life and through a battle without being consumed, because you knew that was all you deserved, you'd let them get eaten and you were determined to undergo the same fate. That was why you'd decided to leave behind your host family in Trost (they'd encouraged you too, thinking that you wanted to seek vengeance, when they really couldn't have been more wrong) to undergo your training so that you could join the Garrison. 

 

Yeah, the Garrison had been your biggest aspiration, you'd be positioned on the walls and you'd be the first to see if a Titan attack was going to happen and well, if you got a little too close to the edge one day and accidentally tripped and fell off the wall then that wouldn't be such a bad thing either. 

 

It had just sucked that you'd had to go through the training first, because you were more than willing to go and stand guard on those walls without it. And, truthfully, you'd hated most of the experience with it – it was hard work and you couldn't slack off, because if you did then you would have been dispatched out with the other people who had been terrible, or quitters and you had nowhere to go. And with no training, no Garrison, no finding out if and when the Titans were around and as selfish as it was, you didn't want to be fearful of if and when they attacked again, you wanted to be informed so you could do what you needed to do. 

 

And being around so many people near constantly was not good for you either – you didn't want to form connections to new people, you weren't here to make friends after all, you were here because you needed to be trained and other than the activities that required a partner, you'd planned to stay away from everyone. That hadn't turned out to be the easiest task, because you shared a room with the rest of the female trainees. You all slept close together, you all washed together and for the first few weeks that you were there, they would try and include you in everything until most of them had gotten a clue and realized that you just wanted to left be. You were sure the fact that you would wake up panting, sweating and sometimes screaming from the nightmares that haunted your broken sleep every night had been a good deterrent. Though a few of the female trainees, such as Christa Renz and Mina Carolina had continued to persist with you past that.

 

The only time you ever really got to be 'alone' was when you were eating, because your reputation had spread throughout the rest of the trainees and they knew to leave you be and unless it was absolutely necessary, nobody would sit at 'your' table and if they needed to then nobody dared to sit right next to you. You liked things this way and that's how they worked most of the time. Until he decided to break your rules of course.

 

You'd known who he was long before he decided to start encroaching on your personal space of course, he was so tall it was hard not to notice him in passing, but like the rest of your fellow trainees, he'd never gotten a second thought. Until the day he'd just appeared (and okay, he hadn't really just 'appeared', you'd seen him coming because it was hard not to notice someone so tall and still growing) and sat next to you without a word. 

 

If he'd noticed the way you'd glared at him, he hadn't said anything about it, infact he hadn't said anything at all. He'd just sat and eaten, only paying attention to the tray of food in front of him. And when he was done, he'd gotten up and left without so much of a word. And after that first time, it became something that he just did. It wasn't every day – most days he would sit and eat with who you assumed was his closest friend, they were practically attached at the hip. 

 

Not that once he'd sat next to you a few times you'd started to actively notice him a lot more than you had, of course. 

 

It became a few days a week though, he'd come over and sit and eat with you. For some time after he'd first done it, it had annoyed you, not just because he was unwanted but because the other girls had noticed and when they thought you were asleep they gossiped about it. It was through them that you learned of his name – Bertholdt Fubar – and that he had come from a situation somewhat close to yours, he (and Reiner, apparently that was the name of the blonde boy he was always with) was from a small village that had been attacked by the Titans after the fall of Shiganshina, losing a lot of their villagers. 

 

After that you realized that the reason he would seek you out was probably because like you, he craved time by himself. He seemed a lot less annoying after that and some days you actually found yourself wondering if he was going to join you. You would always scold yourself when you thought like that, of course, because you weren't here to make friends, but over time it accidentally happened. You couldn't exactly pin point the moment when you started to think of him like that, but it was sometime after the first time he spoke to you and your dinners together slowly graduated to light conversations together. 

 

And you found with someone to talk to, the nightmares didn't come as often. You still preferred your own company, but you gradually became less icy towards the girls you shared a dorm with. You still were followed by that awful feeling of guilt, but you felt a lot... well... not quite happier than you had in a long time, but maybe more... normal. The Garrison was still your dream, but you thought about what would happen once you joined it less... 

 

And... then, well then that day happened. The one where you'd come face to face with Titans, before you'd been able to pick where you wanted to go and even though you'd always told yourself you knew what you were going to allow to happen if it came down to it, that hadn't managed to happen. You'd tried, you'd tried to separate from the rest of them but you'd never managed to get away... too many people were checking that everyone was still with them. But it brought things back into perspective, reminded you of what you'd done and how you didn't deserve to have even lasted this long. And as much as you hated yourself for it, because you'd promised yourself that you wouldn't let them in, but you cried over the fallen soldiers from that day. 

 

And when it came down to it, came down to leaving them all behind to go join the Garrison, when you saw that Bertholdt wasn't joining the Military Police like he'd originally planned... you'd somehow ended up hanging around and joining the Survey Corps too. You'd tried to move from your position next to him and Reiner, you really had, but your legs wouldn't allow you to move. 

 

And you'd regretted it every day since. 

 

Since Trost, since the Titans things had only gotten worse for you, you were constantly haunted with the shame and guilt of being unable to help your village, only now added to it that you'd been face to face with them and you hadn't been able to get what you'd truly deserved. You'd separated from everyone again as much as you could too, even Bertholdt. You heard the way they spoke about you, about how the attack on Trost must have bought back awful memories for you but you just couldn't deal with them anymore, not when you were still here and such sweet people like Mina and Marco and Thomas hadn't been so lucky.

 

And the dreams. The dreams were back and now they were every night, you were barely able to sleep because as soon as you closed your eyes, those images haunted you. And they were so much worse, now that you knew exactly what they looked like, what they moved like, you could clearly see your village, the people you'd grown up with, your family being eaten alive instead of the soldiers you'd witnessed it happening too. And you deserved to see it play out too, you deserved to have your sleep to be disturbed by those images, to feel constantly exhausted. You deserved to be unable to eat the food that was out in front of you, because you felt so sick. You deserved to be yelled at, because you weren't helping as much as you should have, because it was hard for you to even pull yourself out of bed in the mornings. 

 

This was who you were now, guilty, exhausted, nauseous, no use to anybody. 

 

And you couldn't cope with it anymore.

 

That's how you'd ended up here now. Much to he surprise of those around you, you'd offered to take care of the horses today, to make sure that they were fed and cleaned out while the rest of the Corps either worked on their plans for the next mission outside of the walls, or performed their own chores. You hoped that nobody could come looking for you – especially not Bertholdt, Bertholdt couldn't be the one to come and retrieve you from the stables later, anyone but him. You cared too much about Bertholdt to let him find you like this. 

 

You ran your hand down the blade in your hand, you'd managed to sneak it out of your 3DMG. It wasn't a Titan, it wasn't the way you'd always planned but you couldn't afford to be picky. You'd considered other ways, but this was convenient, nobody would notice the blade was gone now. 

 

You swallowed. This was it, you had some privacy, you had something to assist you. 

 

It was time. 

 

Just one swift move and it would all be over. Or, at least almost over.

 

You stood up, your eyes never leaving the blade you held in your hands and you raised it, the tip pointed out towards yourself., you closed your eyes and...

 

“______! What are you doing?” 

 

His voice surprised you, you dropped the blade to the ground with a clatter and opened your eyes. 

 

Of course it would be him. “Bertholdt.” You sigh. “What're you doing? You're supposed to be in the kitchens are you not?” 

 

Bertholdt seems taken aback by how calm your voice is, his eyes drift from their focus on the blade on the floor and look up to your face. “What am I doing?? I came out here to see if you needed any help and you were...” He swallows. “Just... why?” 

 

You don't say anything, he stands in front of you awaiting an explanation for the situation he's just discovered you in., he's patient, because you don't speak for a few minutes and he still stands, waiting and watching. Eventually you sigh and say “I can't handle this anymore.” You lean against the wall of the stable, sliding down until your sitting on the floor.

 

Though Bertholdt's eyes are on you, you can see him looking at the blade that's still on the floor from out of the corner of his eye. You hope that he isn't going to touch this, because this isn't really any of his business, whether he's probably still your only friend or not. “Survey Corps?” He asks. “You... you can probably just go tell someone and they'll let you transfer to the Garrison, where you wanted to be.” 

 

You shake your head. “Not just Survey Corps, Bertholdt. Life. I can't deal with it anymore, I'm just... I'm so exhausted, so worn down, I don't think I can function anymore.” You bite down on your lip. “I know about your village, but you have no idea what it's like to be me.” You swallow and look up at him, you've never flat out admitted this to anyone before. “If I hadn't run away from the Titans, then maybe I could have helped and maybe some of my village would have made it and yeah, I'd probably be dead but that's better than this. I just can't do this anymore, it's always been bad... but since Trost... I'm constantly thinking about what a waste it is that they're gone and I'm still here... I can't sleep, because when I close my eyes I just see them and I need to not be here anymore. And it's fine, because out of everyone here I'm easiest to lose.” 

 

Bertholdt is quiet, he just studies you, but his face is pale and he opens his mouth. And then closes it again. Another minute passes before he's finally able to speak. “You don't get to do this, ______.” He says. “You don't get to just pick when you want to check out when we're all struggling to survive.” You're kind of shocked – you've never heard Bertholdt raise his voice before, not really. “We don't know what's going to happen today, or tomorrow, but we have to keep living. You've seen people die in front of you, ______! They didn't want that, they all trained so hard to be able to help people survive and they didn't get a choice, nobody should get a choice, this is selfish. And your family, your village! Do you really think that they'd want to see you dead? They wouldn't hate you for what you did! You were just doing what you had to do to survive, do you really think that your family would have wanted you to die if you could have saved yourself?! You did what you had to do!” He pauses, you can see the anger flaring on his face. “And you're not the easiest to lose! People care about you, I care about you more than you know!” 

 

You shake your head at him. “No Bertholdt, I'm not selfish, you have no idea what it's like to carry a burden like this, I'm the reason my entire family is dead. I'm the reason an entire village was killed. There is so much blood on my hands that my own blood doesn't matter to me!” You spit back at him. 

 

“I'm the reason your entire village is dead.” He spits out. “I'm the reason your family is dead, I'm, the reason you feel like this.”

 

You have no idea what he's talking about, but his words were enough to make you forget your train of thought. “...Bertholdt?” 

 

Bertholdt sighs and collapses to the ground next to you. “I'm the Colossal Titan. I broke the wall down, I started all of this. So yes, ______. I know what it's like to have a burden like this, I know what it's like to have blood on your hands. And I know what it's like to have nightmares, Reiner and the boys mock me for the way I move about and end up in weird positions when I sleep... but that's because I have night terrors I can't wake up from.” 

 

You feel sick and you shuffle away from him. How is this true? How could someone like Bertholdt do something like that? No. You don't believe it, he's making it up to make you feel better. It isn't going to work. Then again, it does sort of make sense... you've seen Eren's Titan form after all and there are certain things about it that once you found out what it was were decidedly Eren. And the Colossal Titan is... well, colossal and Bertholdt is really tall. No, you can't believe you're even entertaining this. It's ridiculous. “You're lying.” 

 

“Why would I lie?” Bertholdt asks. “Why would I pretend to be someone that everyone wants dead, who has caused all of this destruction? You shouldn't feel guilty anymore, don't consider yourself to have blood on your hands because it's all my fault.” 

 

He seems serious. “Why?” You ask. 

 

“I can't tell you that.” Bertholdt looks away. “And I know that you probably hate me now and that I probably haven't made you feel any better and that you're probably going to go and turn me in, but just know that I didn't want this to happen... I was just a kid, I just did what I was told I had to, I didn't know that this would happen.” 

 

You do hate him, but probably not as much as you should. You're surprised, of course you're surprised and you'd be lying if you said you weren't a little fearful of him... but he looks so morose and regretful and you should go and tell everyone right now, you should make sure that he gets executed. But you can't do that, because he's Bertholdt and he's your friend and when this has sunk in a little more, you might hate him as much as you should... but sending Bertholdt to his death would just be more blood on your hands. You really shouldn't believe that he's regretful, but you do. “Why are you still here? Why didn't you just leave?” 

 

Bertholdt sighs and speaks again. “Please don't ask too many questions, because I can't tell you too much, the more you know the more dangerous it is for you. Our task isn't complete yet and we can't return to our village until we find what we're looking for.” 

 

“What are you looking for?”

 

Bertholdt shakes his head.

 

The two of you sit in silence as you still try to process this news, try to force yourself to hate him enough to pass him over to the authorities. “I'm not going to tell anyone.” 

 

“Why?” 

 

“Because I don't want to have to watch you die.” You retort.

 

“Then you're probably the only person who doesn't want me dead.” He replies. “I'm wanted, dead or alive, remember?” Oh. You've seen those posters. They must be hard for him to walk past every day. “You don't hate me?”

 

“I hate you. Probably not as much as I should.” You pause. “And I don't forgive you, I'm never going to forgive you, but I'm not going to tell anyone. At least not now, but I can't make any promises if you have to do something like this again.” 

 

He seems to accept this. “Promise me you won't try and hurt yourself again.”

 

“I'm not making any promises.” 

 

He sighs. “Well I'm not going to let anything happen to you.” His eyes linger on the blade again. “And I'm not leaving you alone with that.” He's silent again, but you feel something warm against your hand, his fingers, he's trying to hold your hand. 'I care about you more than you know!' seems a little clearer now, but for now you're not even going to think about that.

 

You probably shouldn't, but you let him. 

 

“Do you still feel guilty? Because you shouldn't, we've both done things we maybe shouldn't have.” You really don't think that Bertholdt should use the words 'maybe' and 'shouldn't have' to describe the things that he's done. “We do what we have to.” 

 

“I'm never going to forgive myself for what happened.” You say.

 

He frowns, goes silent again until he clears his throat to speak. “If... when I return to my village, I'm taking you with me. I don't know if it will be safe to leave you here.” 

 

You don't know if Bertholdt will get to return to his village and you don't known if you'll go with him if he does. You don't know that you won't hate him tomorrow, but for now having him here, knowing that someone has been through the guilt that you have is somewhat of a comfort. Bertholdt is a comfort. You're making him no promises, you don't know how you'll feel tomorrow, next week, next month... 

 

The one thing that you do know is that you're never not going to feel responsible for what happened to your village, to your family, because you still could have done something to help. 

 

But at least you're no longer keeping that to yourself. You have someone to share your burden. 

 

And that makes you feel weirdly safe.

 

You wonder if that means the dreams will go, if you can go one day without feeling exhausted in every way. Because he can't protect you from those.

 

But you guess, only time will tell.


End file.
